Addicted

 I didn’t know what had happened.
Suddenly my world was turned upside- down.
One day he was fine.
The next day he was sick, very sick.
The day after he was lying helpless in a white hospital gown on a bed not his own,
and he seemed to be getting stronger.
The day after that he was gone.
He used walk around the house high.
Smiling and laughing like some demented fool.
Once he knocked my mother’s favorite crystal glass off the dining room table and all he did was laugh,
laugh right in her face.
But of course he had complete control.
He could stop whenever he wanted to.
They just made him feel good; they weren’t addictive like that other stuff.
Each time my mother, or aunt, or grandmother confronted him about it,
this was his response.
But soon he needed more.
He slowly but surely progressed from a
puff to a
snort to a
needle in the arm.
Until one day he was addicted,
completely and totally dependent.
The days when he leapt out of bed on Saturday to play basketball with my brothers were gone.
He simply lay there in the hospital bed,
hopeless and scared. We were all scared.
 
As I sat my his side with my Mama I remembered the last time I saw him outside of that white hospital gown—
at a family barbeque my mama invited the whole family to.
The sun was shining brightly and I was sweating pretty heavily but as I looked over at my uncle I saw he kept shivering, violently.
I wanted to talk to him real bad
and no one else seemed to notice how lonely he was,
so as frightened as I was by this strange shivering I went over to him.
He spoke kindly to me but most of the time he just kept scratching himself a lot, and rocking back and forth in his chair, muttering to himself,
like he didn’t even know I was there.
It was just days later that he passed.
 
 
Mama said he was out of his misery now,
in a better place,
and that God would give him a second chance.
I resolved never to walk that path.
Idiots around me say I will become curious,
that it doesn’t hurt to give something a try.
My uncle was curious too.
I love him but I cannot be like him.
Curiosity has its limits.